https://ejournal.upi.edu/index.php/penjas/article/view/55579 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/jpjo.v8i2.55579
Improving Adolescent Life Skills through Sport Programs at the Child Correctional Institution
Akhmad Sobarna*1, Ahmad Hamidi2
1STKIP Pasundan, Indonesia
2Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia
Article Info
Article History : Received February 2023 Revised April 2023 Accepted August 2023
Available online September 2023
Keywords :
Adolescent, Life Skills, Sport Program, Correctional Institution
Abstract
This study was aimed to examine the integration of life skills in sport training pro- grams. Participants of this study were adolescents aged 14 -19 years, involving 22 ado- lescents (11 adolescents receiving life skill programs, 11 adolescents receiving regular exercise training without life skill programs). Sampling technique used in this study was the intact group technique. The method used was the experimental method with a quasi-experiment model and pre-test post-test control group design. The instrument of this study was an instrument from Cronin and Allen (2017) containing eight life skills taught in a sports training program. The results of this study indicate that the sport pro- gram containing life skills in a structured and deliberate manner had an influence on the life skills of adolescents at Sukamiskin Correctional Institution in Bandung City.
The highest increase of life skill component in the integrated life skill group was the leadership component with the average development of 1.25. Meanwhile, the life skill component that had the highest increase in the non-integrated life skill group was the emotional skill with the average development of 0.70. In conclusion, the provision of sport programs integrated with life skills in a structured and deliberate manner is prov- en to be able to develop life skills and could improve the life skill of adolescent higher than sport programs that are not structured and intentionally integrated with life skills.
INTRODUCTION
Sports can promote a positive individual develop- ment as the utilization of opportunities for life experi- ences (Holt, 2016). The complexity and multi-aspects of sport have a mean of reaching non-sport engagement for individual social improvement, one of which is life skills (Bean & Forneris, 2016). Life skills are physical, behavioral, and cognitive abilities that enable adoles- cents to interact in a different social environment during their lifetime (Damon, 2004). Life skills include an ef- fective communication skill, cognitive ability to make decisions, and interpersonal skills (Danish et al., 2005).
Lifeskills have a significant impact on a variety of be- havioral and cognitive skills, which can be developed in sports and subsequently transferred and applied in non- sporting settings (Gould & Carson, 2008).
Socially multifunctional sport is an important idea to be developed and implemented as an effort to devel- op a life skill (Dou et al., 2019). The values of sport can support life skills obtained through sport participations as an ongoing process since each individual can inter- nalize personal psychosocial assets (Jeklin, 2016). Life skills, in application, are similar to physical skills, where the teaching methods involve several stages starting with demonstration, modeling, and practice (Kochanek & Erickson, 2020). Life skills are important components in improving psychosocial development when carrying out sports and physical activity programs (Kendellen et al., 2017).
Life skills can be facilitated by sports and trans- formed for use in non-sporting purposes. Life skill is divided into cognitive and social abilities (Whitley et al., 2018). Empirically, the development of implicit life skills can lead young people to inherently adopt skills through their sport experiences and transfer them to other life domains independently (Chinkov & Holt, 2016). The development of life skills in sports occurs when individuals interact with the sport learning con- text and are apparent in the acquisition of psychosocial skills, knowledge, and identity transformation (Pierce 2017).
Mechanisms are needed for goal setting to achieve cognitive and social abilities in sports programs to pro- vide opportunities for young people to develop their cognitive and affective aspects (Pierce et al., 2017).
Sport programs provide a place for youth to develop life skills (Santos et al., 2018). Sport programs can pro-
vide feedback to each individual to achieve cognitive and affective development efforts (Zhou et al., 2020).
Through sports, youth and youth skills can develop such as teamwork, goal setting, time management, emo- tional skills, communication, social skills, leadership, problem solving, and decision making (Camiré, 2019).
The same thing was expressed by other researchers. In the process of coaching and developing sports, in the context of education, recreation, and achievement, it often goes hand in hand with achieving goals other than the goals of the sport itself, for example development of various social values, such as life skills (Danish et al., 2005).
The benefits obtained from the program can be seen from the psychological and social aspects that par- ticipation in sports for youth will increase self- confidence, social skills, and psychological benefits, namely reducing the level of depression among youth (Chinkov & Holt, 2016). However, this research cannot be used to all youth, because it did not distinguish youth according to their backgrounds that might be so- cially vulnerable. The different backgrounds determine the mechanism of developing life skills through sports, thus the treatment will be different for youth with dif- ferent backgrounds.
In social and community life, of course, the role of all human resources is influential, including the pres- ence of teenagers. The population census conducted by the Central Statistics Agency (known as BPS) in 2020, Indonesia has a teenager population of 29.17 million.
The KPAI survey in 2019 showed the number of ado- lescents in conflict with the law reached 1,251 cases. In accordance with the report from the Directorate General of Corrections (in the Child Profile, KPAI, 2015), the number of juvenile offenders throughout Indonesia in 2014 reached 3,752 adolescents. Of this number, 790 adolescents (21.06%) were still prisoners and 2,962 adolescents (78.94%) were prisoners or students (KPAI, 2020). In line with research of Hilman, adolescents who deviate and are in conflict with the law are in the age range of 6-12 years (268 adolescent or around 9%) and 13-19 years (829 adolescent or around 91%) (Hilman &
Indrawati, 2017).
Sport is an effective media and arena for facilitat- ing the development of life skills, especially in the con- text of positive youth development, because there are intense social interactions during sports (Burkhard et
al., 2020). This research was aimed at optimizing in- volvement in sports, both before and during the imple- mentation of sports. The principle of providing life skills was to add more weight to the meaning of sports activities to achieve the development of the quality lives of people in a broad sense.
METHODS
This study used a quantitative method with a quasi -experimental design. This study used a pre-test post- test control group design. In this design, the samples were divided into two groups, namely the experimental group (A) and the control group (B). Both groups were given pre-test and post-test, but the treatment was only given to the experimental group. The treatment given was the integration of the life skill program carried out for 8 weeks (2 months).
The population that could be accessed by research- ers was the youth in the Sukamiskin Correctional Insti- tution, Bandung. The sampling carried out in this study was the intact group sampling. The samples of this study were 22 male adolescents divided into two sam- ple groups, namely the experimental group (n = 11 peo- ple) and the control group (n = 11 people). For the sam- ple measurement in experimental and comparative re- search, a minimum of 20 people/group is recommended (Creswell, 2015).
The instrument used to measure the development of student life skills was the Life Skills Scale for Sport (LSSS) questionnaire instrument developed by (Cronin
& Allen, 2017). The LSSS questionnaire instrument was developed for youth sport participants aged 11-21 years. The LSSS questionnaire instrument contains eight main life skills consisting of 47 statement items.
The measurement scale is in the form of a Likert scale with five-point scale ranges from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). The validity and reliability of the instru- ment had been tested in similar studies conducted in Indonesia. The sport training program integrating life skills, based on (Kendellen & Camiré, 2017), provides four steps, namely (a) focus on one life skill per lesson, (b) introduce the life skill at the beginning of the lesson, (c) implement strategies to teach the life skills through- out the lesson, and (d) debrief the life skills at the end of the lesson. Data analysis used SPSS software version 22, involving the Paired Sample t-test and Independent
Sample t-test. Before analyzing the data, the researchers conducted statistical prerequisite tests, such as normali- ty test and homogeneity test.
RESULT
The statistical prerequisite test included the nor- mality test using the Shapiro-Wilk test with a signifi- cance level (α) of 0.05. It can be seen in table 1.
Table 1 shows that all research groups gained a value of > 0.05. The data of the study were normally distributed. The followings are the results of the Levene's homogeneity test using SPSS software. The data are presented in Table 2.
The results of the homogeneity test in Table 2 found that the pre-test post-test value of Group A was 0.472 > 0.05, showing that Group A data had the same variance value (homogeneous). Then, the homogeneity test for Group B obtained a significance value of 0.357
> 0.05, showing that the data for Group B had the same variance value (homogeneous). In this study, there were two groups of research namely Group A, the group of adolescents who were given life skills, and Group B, a group of adolescents without being given a load of life skills. The data of each group before treatment (pre- test) and after treatment (post-test) are described in Ta- ble 3.
Based on Table 3, the mean of pre-test score of Group A was 157.18, while the std. deviation pre-test value was 6.539. The mean of post-test score was
Table 1. Normality Test
Group Test Statistic Shapiro-Wilk df Sig Information
A Pre-test .882 11 .110 Normal
Post-test .889 11 .135 Normal
B Pre-test .951 11 .659 Normal
Post-test .966 11 .845 Normal
Table 2. Levene's Homogeneity Test
Levene
Statistic df1 df
2 Sig. Information Group A
pretest-
posttest 0,537 1 20 0,472 Homogenous
Group B pretest-
postest 0,888 1 20 0,357 Homogenous
199.36, the std. deviation was 8.465, and the mean of Gain was 42.18. The mean of pre-test score of Group B was 151.55, while the std. deviation was 25,033. The mean score of the post-test was 175,64, the std. devia- tion was 19.831, and the average Gain score was 24.09.
From the results of the data analysis, Group A got a greater increase in the life skill development than Group B. Therefore, the life skill of Group A increased after being given a sports program integrating life skills.
Group A involved a group of adolescents who were given a structured and planned sport training pro- gram integrating life skills. The results showed the de- velopment of each component of life skills. Teamwork improved from 3.44 to 4.39, goal setting from 3.48 to 4.44, time management from 3.66 to 4.68, emotional skills from 3.28 to 3.75, interpersonal skills from 3.45 to 4.07, social skills from 3.27 to 4.22, leadership from 3.08 to 4.33, and problem solving and decision making from 3.18 to 4.20. The component experiencing the highest development was the leadership component with an average development of 1.25.
Group B consisted of a group of adolescents who were given a sports training program that did not inte- grate life skills in a structured and planned manner. The results showed the development of each component of life skills. Teamwork improved from 3.21 to 3.75, goal setting from 3.31 to 3.62, time management from 3.64 to 3.85, emotional skills from 3.22 to 3.91, interperson- al skills from 3.27 to 3.65, social skills from 3.18 to 3.74, leadership from 3.06 to 3.48, and problem solving and decision making from 3.05 to 3.37. The component experiencing the highest development was the emotion- al skill component with an average development of 0.70.
Based on the results of the paired test using the SPSS application, a significance value of 0.000 <0.05 was obtained, meaning that there was a difference be- tween the results of the pre-test and the post-test. There- fore, it concludes that the provision of a sport training program that integrated life skills in a structured and planned manner had an effect on the life skill develop- ment of adolescents at Sukamiskin Correctional Institu- tion Bandung in the context of positive youth develop- ment.
The second question is “do sport programs that do not integrate life skills in a structured and deliberate manner have an influence on the life skills of adoles- cents at Sukamiskin Correctional Institution Bandung in the context of positive youth development?”
Based on the results of the paired test using the SPSS application, a significance value of 0.004 <0.05 was obtained, meaning that there was a difference be- tween the results of the pre-test and the post-test. There- fore, it concludes that the provision of a sports training program that did not integrate life skills in a structured and planned manner also had an effect on the life skill Table 3. Descriptive Data
Group Test Mean Score
Gain
Std.
Deviation Group A
Pre-test 11 157,18 42,18
6,539
Post-tes 11 199,36 8,465
Group B
Pre-test 11 151,55 25,033
24,09
Post-tes 11 175,64 19,831
Table 4. Description of Life Skill Development
Life Skill Components
Group A Group B
Pre test Post
test Gain Pre
test Post
test Gain Team work 3.44 4.39 0.95 3.21 3.75 0.54 Goal Setting 3.48 4.44 0.96 3.31 3.62 0.30 Time
Management 3.66 4.68 1.02 3.64 3.85 0.21 Emotional Skills 3.28 3.75 0.47 3.22 3.91 0.70 Interpersonal
Skills 3.45 4.07 0.61 3.27 3.65 0.38
Social skills 3.27 4.22 0.95 3.18 3.74 0.56 Leadership 3.08 4.33 1.25 3.06 3.48 0.42 Troubleshooting
and Decision- making
3.18 4.20 1.02 3.05 3.37 0.32
Amount 26.85 34.08 7.23 25.93 29.36 3.43
Average 3.36 4.26 0.90 3.24 3.67 0.43
Table 5. Group A Hypothesis Testing
Paired Samples Test Paired Differences
T
df Sig. (2- tailed) Group/
Test Mean Std.
Dev.
Group. A Pretets -
Posttest -42,182 9,693 -14,433 10 .000
Table 6. Group B Hypothesis Testing
Paired Samples Test Paired Differences
T
df Sig. (2- tailed) Group/
Test Mean Std.
Dev.
Group. A Pretets -
Posttest -24,091 21,403 -9,712 10 .004
development of adolescents at Sukamiskin Correctional Institution Bandung in the context of Positive Youth Development.
DISCUSSION
The results of this study are in line with the results of previous studies revealing that young people feel that they can develop life skills through sports (Johnston et al., 2013). Although life skills can be developed through sports, it should be remembered that it cannot be separated from the role of competent trainers who are also able to integrate the basic principles of life skill components into sport training programs (Santos et al., 2018).
In line with the results of the analysis and the au- thor observations, the development of life skills occurs in all groups with different significance levels. It was apparent after completing the training process. The ado- lescents from the control and experimental groups cleaned the garbage around the training environment together, lined up neatly and orderly, and started the activity by praying and being led by one of their friends. It shows that there had been a high life skill development of adolescents as a result of the integration of life skill components in sport training programs.
This is in line with previous research showing that an exercise program integrating the life skill compo- nents in its application could significantly improve life skills compared to an exercise program that did not in- tegrate the life skill components in its application (Kendellen et al., 2017). In addition, the results of this study are also in line with the results of the analysis of the author observations that the development of life skills in Group A looked more significant than in Group B.
Even though they experienced an increase in life skills, based on the author observations, Group A showed a more significant development, especially in terms of leadership. It can be seen during the imple- mentation of a more orderly and regular exercise. All of the adolescents in Group A were present at the training site before the scheduled time for training and had lined up neatly and did stretching led by one of their col- leagues. When compared to the adolescents from Group B, even though they were present on time, but all of the adolescents in group B were present shortly before the
practice started and had not lined up and stretched so the coach had to choose one of them to lead the line and stretch.
However, in general, both groups of adolescents were better than before in terms of leadership and time management. Previously, the training schedule had to always be postponed because they were not on time and still had to be told to line up and stretch. This means that adolescent life skills have improved through the integration of life skills in sport training programs in a structured and planned manner.
CONCLUSION
In this study, the focus of the problem as well as the main objective was to see the effect of sport programs integrating life skills in a structured and deliberate man- ner to develop the life skills of adolescents at the Suka- miskin Child Correctional Institution in Bandung City.
The study concludes that sports can be the right medi- um to improve adolescent life skills, with differences in the improvement, through sport programs that integrate life skills in a structured and deliberate manner or with- out integration of life skills programs in a structured and deliberate manner. During sports, teenagers interact more with the environment, peers, and instructors. So- cial interactions and problems that occur during exer- cise can make it easier for someone to get their life skills. However, compared to sports that integrate life skill programs intentionally and structured, the results provided are better than just providing sports without integration of life skill programs.
The results of research on the sample group receiv- ing a sport program integrating life skills showed a sig- nificant increase in life skills. Furthermore, the results of the study proved that the eight components of life skills had increased in groups that integrated life skill programs and groups that did not integrate life skills programs, but a greater increase occurred in groups that integrated sport programs in a structured and deliberate manner. Sport as a medium for integrating life skills makes it easy for people to understand the eight compo- nents of the given life skills. After being given the inte- gration of life skill programs into sports, teenagers begin to realize that they are not only doing sport activi- ties, but also life skills that have a positive and benefi- cial impact on their lives .
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